The last Bowels movement

From my notes of July 25, 1980

Bowles told us he pays only $85 a month for his apartment, up from $35 a month when he first moved in 40-odd years ago. He told us about how a guy named PR stirred the waters of social Tangier by writing an article for Oui magazine several years ago in which he described how Bowles always instructed his driver to park the car with its wheels turned out for a quick getaway during parties at DH’s house. “It was true, of course, but you can’t go around saying such things,” said Bowles ... He has a beautiful apricot-colored canary he keeps in a cage in his study. It warbles constantly, no doubt helplessly incited by the musty fumes wafting in without cease from the living room, where in the course of a short half-hour Bowles has been known (M counted) to smoke seven and a half joints single-handedly. The canary was born in Bowles’ study, along with four siblings. Bowles’ consort, Mrabet, raises canaries in an apartment below, which he barters off for extortionate prices. …

From my notes of July 26, 1980

Two more Bowles stories:

1. Moroccans treat sex as an animal act [Bowles says]. They don’t romanticize it at all. There are no porn movies, even in Tangier, and until the last few years, there were not sexual graffiti—just airplanes, weapons and cars.

2. Sherifa, the witch [who was the Bowleses' maid], used to tell Bowles that she was a saint and a virgin (“Ana santa, ana bint”) and claimed she had papers to prove the latter. Bowles surmises that although her virginity paper was certainly not official, she may have obtained one to show the police in case they caught her outside after dark—any unaccompanied Muslim woman out at night is assumed to be a prostitute.

From my notes of July 28, 1980

Here’s what Bowles said today: The sand used in mixing concrete here has salt in it which accumulates moisture in damp weather and cause the concrete to crumble. It makes terrible houses, hot in summer, cool in winter … Once when he was in South America he got bitten by a spider. Two months later the bite was still there and very sore. So he went to a doctor in Guatemala who lanced a cone-shaped core from his ankle and showed it to him under the microscope. Inside were hundreds of tiny spiders … In the Yucatan the chickleteers (chicklet cutters) get bitten by a fly in the ear. I guess the fly lays its eggs in the ears. Because eventually the ears fall off, having been eaten away from inside the cartilage … In Msab, Algeria, the hand of Fatima is hung over the door whenever the husband is away from home. This is to protect the wife and children during his absence, but in effect it is a signal to the world that the husband is not home … Mrabet says that two hours after his mother gave birth she was back at work in the fields. No shilly shallying … Bowles once lived in the house Cortes built for Marija in Mexico. Some Americans had bought it and let out rooms … The people of Fez are disliked by the rest of Morocco. This is because at one point in the 17th century all the Jews in Fez were were forced to convert to Islam within 24 hours or lose their land. They kept their Jewish names but became Muslims. Now Fez is assumed by the rest of the country to be all Jewish, although in actuality the population is only about 5% Jewish. Muslim can’t forgive Jews for not being Muslims. They’ve lived side by side with the Muslims for so many years and still won’t see the light. Clearly they are devils. Anyway, Fezians are considered to be arrogant and snotty about their culture. A sidelight: Jew is the favorite imprecation to hurl at a donkey who won’t move … Bowles’ suggestions to me: Practice is everything. Try writing something you don’t like just to have the experience of exploring alternatives. Avoid first-person narratives …

More Bowlesiana

For Bowles fans, more Bowlesiana from my 30-year-old journal (these are verbatim, warts and all):

My notes from July 18, 1980

Class with Bowles yesterday: He said he loves birds and until last year has always had at least one parrot. The last one was called Hitler by his maid because it ran after people squawking and nipping their ankles. He told a story about crossing the Sahara in winter. He was the only person in his train car and snow drifted in the windows. Finally another car, filled with Moroccans, was attached. The Moroccans were bitterly cold, so naturally they built a fire on the wood floor of the train car—causing the whole car to go up in flames.

Bowles says that the reason Moroccans are so cold to foreigners is that they see non-Muslims as being insignificant because we have no souls. We have a nice life on earth but they have paradise for all eternity. To be curious about us would be as pointless as being curious about a fly.

Bowles is a delightful man. He has great anecdotes and tells them well. He understands Moroccans and has a boundless humorous appreciation of them but no desire to be one of them. He’s like an anthropologist, very professional about maintaining his distance and objectivity. I asked him if he were ever tempted to convert to Islam and he recoiled at the idea, said he was an atheist and it would be false to subscribe to any god. The only religion he finds attractive is Buddhism because it doesn’t postulate a deity.

He has long skinny legs and looks very athletic and young when he leaps up and bounds into the kitchen to make tea for us. He has a maid, but apparently he does all his own cooking because he has a morbid fear of being poisoned. Also boils every drop of water because he has had typhoid three times. Won’t fly in planes. Can’t drive a car. He’s a very sensible person. These phobias don’t fit in with other things I know of him.

He really is dependent on drugs and started at an early age. His mother used to take him, when he was a boy, to a bar in Harlem where the shoeshine boys sold reefers the size of cigars for 25 cents apiece. Smoking pot had no stigma then, he says. Now he cannot write unless he’s stoned. His apartment is thoroughly saturated with the ancient fumes of joints past—almost unpleasantly musty.

A list of odds and ends Bowles said about Morocco yesterday:

1. The Koran is the law of the land. Local police are autonomous and basically write their own justice. Many are sadistic. Beatings are common, as well as hangings of various sorts and mutilations. Described the practice of beating the soles of the feet until they crack open. Twenty years after receiving such a beating, people cannot walk comfortably.

2. Slavery still exists in the Moroccan deep south. Even though it has been officially outlawed there is no one to enforce it so it continues. Slaves, for the most part, like being slaves. They have cushy jobs—usually as guards—and have all their needs attended to. Sounds like Morocco has some really wild, ungoverned areas.

3. Moroccans have no respect for privacy. They cannot fathom why anyone would want to read or write and can only deduce that when someone is engaged in one of these activities he is desperately bored and should, in all kindness, be diverted. [TW, my Islamic history teacher, elaborated on this. He said when he was working on his dissertation he very badly needed time to himself to work on his notes, etc. Whenever his hosts saw him withdrawing to do this, they assumed that their hospitality had been inadequate and that he was bored, so they would go out and bring in he neighbors to keep him entertained.]